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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391348">Awkwardness</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard'>ModernWizard</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Happy Famverse [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humor, Innuendo, Is Yaz a furry? Find out here, No actual sex, The Master is a cat, The Master is literally a cat, YOU KNOW!! THE THING!!, although they do discuss it, for that embarrassing thing, including a soliloquy on why he feels the need to control himself and everything else, so here he is apologizing to Yaz, sometimes that leads to embarrassing results, the Master thinks Earthling heteronormativity is VERY WEIRD, where he lost his shit!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:56:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,773</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24391348</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ModernWizard/pseuds/ModernWizard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In the wake of his embarrassing cattitude, the Master apologizes to Yaz for losing his shit in front of her. We learn why the Master has such a need to control himself and everything else. We also learn what turns Yaz on [!].</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan), Yasmin Khan &amp; The Master (Dhawan)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Happy Famverse [17]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694899</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Awkwardness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>[YAZ peeks into THE MASTER’S living room.]</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Hey, Master?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: What! No! Oh! Hi! Whoa! Hi. </span>
  <em>
    <span>[Leans casually on stack of books. Books fall over. Catches self.]</span>
  </em>
  <span> I meant to do that! Hi! What’s up?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Are you, um, upset about something? You’re jittery, and you keep running out of the room when I come in.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Upset? Hah hah hah, no. C’mon. You know what I look like when I’m upset. I throw fits and talk to myselves.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Oh, I thought maybe you were mad at me.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Mad? We’ve already established that I’m mad. Cross, dressing, and all. But at you? No! No no no no. Why? I mean — hey! </span>
  <em>
    <span>[Nods at a felted xenofungus sticking out of YAZ’S patchwork crafts bag.]</span>
  </em>
  <span> Your extravagon mushroom there is looking great. Was I right, or was I right? I was, of course, right. You’re gonna love it when we actually have a chance to go out hunting. You’ll have all sorts of weird specimens to make in stabby sculpture!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Ah. Okay. Phew. Uh, anything you want to talk about?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Absolutely not!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Okay. But if you change your mind — </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: No no no, whoa whoa whoa. Wait! I don’t want to talk about it, but I probably should.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Do you or don’t you want to talk about it?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Both. But I’m going to. The Master of Friendship said I should.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: The who?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Someone who knows all about these things. Here, let’s sit down.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Okay, sure. So...what’s on your mind?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: So...</span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> was embarrassing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Sitting down?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: No. The — the — the — you know!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Um, what?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: You know — the embarrassing thing!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: What thing?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: The embarrassing thing! That thing!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Uhhhhh, I still don’t know what thing you’re talking about.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Prrrrt?! PRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRRrrrrrrRRRRrrrr! Et cetera, et cetera. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Oh. Yeah. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Yeah. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That</span>
  </em>
  <span> thing where I lost my shit and freaked you out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Ah. That thing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: ‘M sorry you saw that. I should have...just...not.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Oh. Um. Okay. Can I ask a stupid question?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Sure.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Could you have just...not? I mean — I’m unclear. The Doctor said it was sort of like an override, which would mean that maybe you </span>
  <em>
    <span>couldn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> have just...not.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Well obviously I can just...not! I did right after you went, ‘Eep!’ </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Maybe it’s like a reflex? Like sneezing? Sometimes you can stop yourself, but sometimes you can’t.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Ever noticed how stopping a sneeze makes you feel like you’ve swallowed an explosion? Like now it’s just squatting in your sinuses, expanding like a hot air balloon. Fun stuff! </span>
  <em>
    <span>[Two thumbs up.]</span>
  </em>
  <span> Good times! No...but...yeah, anyway… The psychic feedback thing makes me much more likely to act like a cat, especially when I’m asleep or waking up.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Which you were —</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: So then it’s more difficult to snap out of, but not impossible. Which means I have no excuse. No excuse! I — have — no — excuse! </span>
  <em>
    <span>I</span>
  </em>
  <span> was still the one losing my shit. Which I shouldn’t have.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: I don’t think you’re the only person who’s ever gotten turned on and distracted, though. So you couldn’t help it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Couldn’t help it? Couldn’t help it? Of course I could have helped it! That’s the whole point of who I am. I have the control; I have the authority; I have the power. I do what I choose to do on my terms and no one else’s. Otherwise, someone’s gonna send me to stare at a crack in reality when I’m eight, and I’ll see the end of existence and start losing my marbles in the schism. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER CONT.: Then I’d feel everyone’s feelings and know everyone’s secrets. So full of everyone else! So full of everyone else, feeling and thinking and screaming, screaming, screaming — up here, inside my head! No room for myselves! No room for myselves. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER CONT.: Stupid kid, pathetic kid, empty kid, scared kid. Lost their thoughts in a bat-filled belfry. Lost their voice in a storm that they tried to outscream. Put on a leash by the Space Fascists and </span>
  <em>
    <span>liked it. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Thought that the choke chain was a tether to reality. Thought that the indoctrination was truth, that becoming a Space Fascist would make the universe make sense. Hollow kid, mindless kid. Thought that being the Space Fascists’ living bomb would be the greatest honor of all. Brainless kid.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER CONT.: You know what I was during the Time War? I was the disease. If the Space Fascists wanted to disrupt a timeline, they just sent me in, and I destroyed it. I was the vector of a temporal virus, and I destabilized chronology, merely by moving through it. I destroyed the universe at least five times. Me! I killed everything! Me me me! </span>
  <em>
    <span>Everything!</span>
  </em>
  <span> I undid the universe, and I was the only one who remembered. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER CONT.: All those deaths were mine then. Became part of me. Right here, right here, right here in my hearts. The Space Fascists said that I was the most savage and corrupt of them all. Savage! GRAAAR! Only I could do such awful work. I became death. And </span>
  <em>
    <span>that’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> what happened when I couldn’t help myself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER CONT.: You see? You see? You see now why I have to keep power? You see now what I have to keep control? Because, if I’m not, then someone else will be, and I’ll be nothing but that — that — that child again. Stupid child, lonely child, desperate child, abandoned child, deadly child, mortal child, timeless child. Without a mind or a feeling or a thought or a heart or a home or a life of my own. Unfeeling, unthinking, unloving, unloved, unhelped, unmastered. Unmastered! Unmastered! Unmastered!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: That’s horrible. No wonder it was so mortifying. </span>
  <em>
    <span>[Reaches out for him.]</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! </span>
  <em>
    <span>[He recoils with a violent shrug.] </span>
  </em>
  <span>Do not — do not — </span>
  <em>
    <span>do not</span>
  </em>
  <span> feel sorry for me. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: But — why? Why won’t you let anyone care about — ?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: No! Because...no! Because no! This isn’t — this doesn’t — this wasn’t — not about me. Not about me. Fuck the tragic soliloquy. I — I just — I hate losing my shit. Which is why that was inexcusable, and I’m sorry, and don’t worry — that’s never-fuckin’-ever happening again because I am going to actually live the fuck up to my name for once. So...sorry. I’m sorry. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Um. Hum. Uh. I accept your apology, I guess. I mean — clearly that really hit on something much bigger for you than just — oops! — accidentally getting turned on. And that stinks, and the Doctor really should have been thinking about that. She was apologizing to me for ‘breaking my taboo’ or whatever. I said she should have been thinking about you too and, you know, everything you just told me about. She said, and I quote, ‘Oh yeah, I didn’t even — I probably should have.’</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Yeah, she probably should have, but that’s the Doctor. She doesn’t always think about the things you think that she should think about.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Yeah.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: I’m sorry I scared you. I really, really shouldn’t be doing that, especially not if I’m trying to have a social life. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Well, it didn’t really scare me.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: No? ‘Cause you sure looked freaked out. Bolted out of here like your tail was on fire. Okay! Hah hah, no. Just ignore that. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck me — </span>
  </em>
  <span>this is hard. </span>
  <em>
    <span>[Puts elbow on knee, rubs forehead. Suddenly looks up.]</span>
  </em>
  <span> Shit! Just so you know — that was neither a double entendre nor an invitation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: I was like startled — but I wasn’t scared. It was more like — a sort of jolt.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: ‘Jolt.’ That looked less like a jolt and more like an unmastered convulsion of — you know what? Never mind.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Is it weird that I thought that was sort of...hot?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: What?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: The...cat thing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Hot?! Why?! You like seeing people make fools of themselves? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: No! It wasn’t the humiliation. It was just that you were so...into it that you forgot everything.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Ah. Well then. Nah, that’s not weird. You’re just a furry.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: I am n — ! </span>
  <em>
    <span>[Stops, realizing something. Tries again.] </span>
  </em>
  <span>I am n — ! I’m — never mind.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: What’s the problem if you are? It’s really not that strange in terms of kinks. You wanna know what’s really weird?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Mayyyyyybe…</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Ah hah! You do! I can see it in your eyes. Okay, here’s what’s really weird. There’s this species with a huge rainbow of genders and sexes and identities. You know — like lots of species across the multiverse. But, in this species, they’re obsessed with dividing everyone into two groups, pairing ‘em off for life, and making ‘em breed. And anything else is wrong and bad and evil. Can you imagine?!?!?! </span>
  <em>
    <span>[Shakes head.]</span>
  </em>
  <span> Wow. Just...wow. Blows my mind really. It’s like some sort of twisted ‘opposites attract’ fallacy based on this truly bizarre concept called ‘love,’ all pressed into service for a societal reproduction fetish. </span>
  <em>
    <span>WEIRD.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: You’re talking about us, aren’t you? Humans.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Yeah. You are truly, truly, truly weird.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Yeah...ya know...I’ve been thinking a little bit that way too. Ever since hanging around the Doctor, I realize that not everyone thinks about sex the way that we — well, humans — do. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: This is true.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: And I’ve gotta think that, especially to someone like the Doctor, who doesn’t really have, you know, a frame of reference for sex, that </span>
  <em>
    <span>we’re</span>
  </em>
  <span> the weird ones.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Wow, folks! I think she’s opening her mind! Will she eventually perceive the true rainbow of possibility in the universe? Stay tuned!!</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: Oh shut up. Or maybe humans have such a narrow idea of what’s normal that we create problems where there aren’t any. Like if I thought furries were normal, I — uh —  </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Well, we know what </span>
  <em>
    <span>you’d</span>
  </em>
  <span> be thinking about at night...</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: I was just gonna say that I probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Eh, who are we kidding? You’re already thinking about it at night anyway.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>YAZ: You’re not helping.</span>
  <em>
    <span> [Trying to glare.]</span>
  </em>
  <span> I hate you. You weird me out and make me feel better about myself at the same time.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>THE MASTER: Awwwww, how touching. I hate you for the same reasons too, love!</span>
</p>
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